Joseph Isaac Clanton was one of the participants
in the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral. Son of a Tombstone, Arizona
rancher, Ike Clanton, his father, brothers, and their gang of ranch hands,
called the Cowboys, were notorious in the area, and had been accused of
cattle rustling, robbery and murder, but were regarded within Tombstone
as vague nuisances at worst and an economic necessity at best by Tombstones
inhabitants, including local sheriff, John Behan. The Clantons were
closely associated with the McLaury family and together they controlled
the town until Virgil Earp arrived in town to take the position of chief
of police and brought his brothers, Morgan and Wyatt Earp to serve as sometime
deputies. The Earps cohort, Doc Holliday, came on the scene
soon after. The two groups opposed each other for several reasons,
money and power not the least. Several altercations had only fanned
the fires, including the one that finally brought things to a head involving
a stagecoach robbery in which two people were killed. The Earps attributed
the robbery to the Clanton faction and the Clantons said it was Doc Holliday
(this was made more believable when Hollidays girlfriend, Big Nose Kate,
accused him of it loudly after they had a fight, but it is generally accepted
that Holliday had nothing to do with the robbery). The two factions
came to blows on October 26, 1881 at the OK Corral on the edge of Tombstone.
Ike Clanton survived, but was later shot in 1887 during an attempted arrest
for cattle rustling.